THE  HERITAGE  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 


BY 

WILLIAM  M.  EVARTS. 


Avery  Arc  hitlc  tlral  and  Fine  Arts  Library 
Gu  t  of  Skymolr  B.  Ol  rst  Old  York  Library 


THE  HERITAGE  OF  THE  PILGRIMS. 


AN  ORATION 

DELIVERED   BEFORE  THE 

ISTEW  E^^aL^ISTD  SOCIETY 

m  t|£  Citu  of  felir  fork, 

IN  CELEBRATION  OF  THE 

TWO  HUNDRED  AND  THIRTY-FOURTH  ANNIVERSARY 
OF  THE  LANDING  AT  PLYMOUTH. 


BY 

WILLIAM  M.  EVARTS. 


PUBLISHED    BY    THE  SOCTETY; 


NEW  YORK  : 
D.  APPLETON  AND  COMPANY, 

346  &  348  BROADWAY. 
1855. 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2013 


http://archive.org/details/heritageofpilgriOOevar 


THE  HERITAGE  OF  THE  PILGEIMS. 


^it  ©ration 

BY 

WILLIAM  M.  EVARTS. 


'  QUORUM  GLORIA  NEQUE  PROFUIT  QUISQUAM  LAUDAN 
NEC  VITUPERANDO  QUISQUAM  NOCUIT." 


ORATION. 


Mr.  President  and  Gentlemen  of  the  New  England  Society  : 

The  custom  by  which  we  celebrate  this  anniver- 
sary would  find  its  sufficient  support  in  the  sentiment 
of  ancestral  veneration.    "  The  glory  of  the  children 
is  their  fathers."    Of  every  worthy  stock  the  not 
degener;\te  sons  cherish  the  names  of  those  from 
whom  by  an  authentic  lineage  they  trace  their 
honorable  descent.    With  zealous  affection  and  a 
pious  reverence  they  explore  all  sources  of  know- 
ledge respecting  their  lives,  their  characters,  their 
motives,  their  acts.    In  a  spiiit  neither  arrogant  nor 
envious,  they  are  yet  jealous  for  a  just  estimate  of 
the  virtue  and  the  power  which  marked  the  founders 
of  their  line  ;  careful  that  no  malign  or  reckless  in- 
fluence shall  distort  the  record,  or  obscure  the  re- 
membrance, of  their  deeds ;  earnest  in  the  deter- 
mination that  their  latest  descendants  shall  lose 
nothing  of  their  heritage  in  these  great  names,  in  the 


6 


course  of  its  descent.  N(jr  should  it  be  for  a  rao- 
raent  supposed  that  the  spirit  of  our  institutions  and 
the  structure  of  our  society,  which  have  discarded 
the  hereditary  transmission  of  rank  and  power,  dis- 
couraged even  the  succession  of  wealth,  and  made 
ridiculous  the  culture  of  a  vulgar  family  pride,  have 
at  all  weakened  or  diverted  the  force  of  those  natural 
ties  which  connect  us  alike  with  our  ancestry  and 
our  posterity,  and  sustain  jukI  protect,  as  a  perpetual 
and  imperishable  possession,  the  glory  and  worth  of 
our  forefathers.  Say  rather  that,  as  you  strip  from 
this  heritable  relation,  all  that  is  false  or  factitious, 
all  that  is  casual  or  valueless,  you  give  new  force  to 
this  genuine  lineage  of  noble  character,  this  true 
heirship  to  greatness  of  purpose  and  of  action. 
Upon  the  recurrence  of  this  day,  then,  although  the 
great  transaction  which  has  made  it  illustrious,  had 
drawn  after  it  no  such  magnificent  train  of  conse- 
quences as  history  now  attributes  to  it,  although  the 
noble  undertaking  had  attained  to  no  proportionate 
grandeur  of  result,  it  would  become  us  to  meet  with 
sincere  filial  devotion,  and  add  one  stone  to  the 
monument  inscribed  in  honor  of  the  Puritan  Exiles, 
one  note  to  the  anthem  of  their  fame. 

But  the  actual  course  of  history  has  not  left  the 
"  Landing  of  the  Pilgrims "  an  isolated  or  fruitless 
occurrence,  buried  in  the  grave  of  the  past,  nor  con- 


1 


fined  its  interest  to  the  private  and  peculiar  consider- 
ations which  should  affect  the  inheritors  of  their 
blood  and  names.  It  is  as  the  principal  and  initial 
in  a  still  continuing  series  of  great  events,  as  the 
operative  and  unexhausted  cause  of  large  results  al- 
ready transpired,  and  larger  yet  surely  to  ensue, 
that  we  chiefly  applaud  the  transaction  of  this  day. 
Upon  the  Rock  of  Plymouth  was  pressed  the  first 
footstep  of  that  energetic  and  creative  power  in  hu- 
man affairs  which  has  since  overrun  the  continent, 
and  is  stopped  in  its  sublime  progress,  if  it  be  stopped 
at  all,  only  with  the  shores  of  the  all-containing  sea. 
Through  the  actual  aspect  of  the  scene  of  the  debar- 
kation, made  up  of  wintry  sea  and  gloomy  sky,  and 
bleak  and  desolate  coast,  we  see  breaking  the  efful- 
gence of  those  moral  elements  of  light  and  hope 
which  have  ever  since  shone  with  so  conspicuous 
splendor,  and  the  spot  seems  to  us  the  brightest  and 
the  warmest  on  the  face  of  the  earth ;  hriglit^  as  the 
source  and  fountain  of  those  radiant  glories  of  free- 
dom in  whose  glad  light  we  live :  warm^  with  the  fer- 
vent glow  of  that  beneficent  activity  which  pervades 
and  invigorates  the  life  of  this  whole  nation,  which 
has  secured  the  progress  of  the  past  and  forms  the 
hope  of  the  future. 

'  lile  terrarum  mihi,  prseter  omnes, 
Angulus  riJet." 


8 


It  is  New  England,  as  she  was  first  founded,  as 
she  has  since  been  established  and  ]>uilt  up,  as  she 
now  is, — mother  of  men,  source  of  great  ideas,  nurse 
of  great  principles,  battle-ground  of  great  conflicts, — 
that  we  celebrate  in  this  commemoration. 

There  is  one  circumstance  in  our  situation,  as  as- 
sembled here,  which  cannot  escape  our  attention. 
We  are  without  the  borders  of  New  England,  yet 
no  exiles  from  our  country ;  we  are  beyond  the  pro- 
tection of  those  governments  that  still  rule  over  the 
soil  of  the  Puritan  plantations,  yet  we  have  neither 
lost  our  birthright  there,  nor  are  we  strangers  here ; 
however  generous  and  cordial  has  been  our  reception 
in  the  community  in  which  we  live,  yet  we  have 
come  hither,  and  here  remain,  neither  by  sufferance 
nor  by  any  title  of  courtesy  or  hospitality ;  we  are 
here  of  right  and  at  home.    As  it  is  with  us  in  this 
central  metro^jolis,  so  is  it  with  our  brethren,  the 
descendants  of  our  common  ancestors,  in  the  fair 
cities  of  the  South,  and  in  the  wide  valley  of  the 
West; 

"And  where  the  san.  with  softer  fires, 
Looks  on  the  vast  Pacific's  sleep  ; 
The  children  of  the  Pilgrim  sires, 
This  hallowed  day,  like  us,  do  keep." 

New  England  has  enlarged  the  dominion  of  her 
laws  over  no  wider  territorial  limits  than  at  the  first, 


9 


yet  for  her  expanding  population,  for  her  institutions, 
her  customs,  her  moral,  social,  political  and  religious 
influences,  she  has  received  a  truly  imperial  exten- 
sion. As  an  integral  portion  of  the  great  Federal 
Eepublic,  produced  by  the  double  act  of  Indepen- 
dence and  of  Union,  in  which  she  took  so  large  and 
decisive  a  part,  IS^ew  England — ^losing  nothing  of  her 
local  identity  and  her  express  individuality — yet  has 
her  chief  duties  and  responsibilities  at  present  and 
in  the  future;  and  in  every  just  estimate  of  what 
the  vital  forces  of  the  Puritan  character  have  hither- 
to effected,  or  may  yet  be  expected  to  accomplish, 
this  relation  of  New  England  must  be  largely  con- 
sidered. 

While  the  influences  of  the  occasion  direct  our 
view  mainly  to  the  past,  still  our  contemplations,  as 
it  seems  to  me,  would  not  wisely  take  the  course 
either  of  antiquarian  curiosity,  or  historical  research, 
or  controversial  attack  or  vindication.  All  consul- 
tation of  the  past  is  vain,  unless  our  questioning  find 
out  some  key  and  guide  to  the  future.  Man  escapes 
from  the  unsatisfying  present,  and  lengthens  the 
brief  span  of  his  personal  existence,  by  laying  hold 
upon  the  past,  and  reaching  forward  to  the  future ; 
but  of  the  past  only  is  he  secure,  and  in  it  he  must 
find  the  forest  and  the  quarry  from  which  to  hew 
out  the  shapely  structu^^es  of  the  future.    It  was  an 


10 


annual  custom  among  the  Romans,  in  the  more  re- 
ligious period  of  their  history,  as  the  year  appi  oached 
its  close,  for  the  augurs  and  other  liigh  priests  to  make 
a  solemn  observation  of  the  signs,  l>y  which  they 
might  predict  the  fortunes  of  the  republic  for  the 
coming  year.  This  '''' aur/urmm  mliUU-^''  this  pre- 
sage of  the  public  welfare,  may  well  attend  our  pious 
homage  to  the  memory  of  those  who  laid  the  foun- 
dations of  our  commonwealth,  for  in  these  founda- 
tions shall  we  find  the  surest  indications  of  its  future 
fortunes,  propitious  or  adverse.  Nor  to  ourselves 
shall  a  brief  communion  with  the  stern  natures,  the 
elevated  motives,  the  inspiring  example  of  these  re- 
markable men,  be  without  a  personal  benefit ;  our 
feebler  spirits  and  lapsing  energies  may  catch  some 
new  vigor  from  this  contact  with  their  embalmed 
virtue,  as  of  old  the  dead  even  Avas  revived  by  touch- 
ing the  bones  of  the  prophet  Elisha. 

These  reflections  seem  naturally  to  present  as  an 
appropriate  theme,  for  such  consideration  as  the 
limits  of  the  occasion  will  permit,  Tiie  Heritage  of 
THE  PiLGRBis — OS  we  liave  received  it  from  them^  as 
we  are  to  transmit  it  to  our  descendants. 

In  attempting  some  analysis  of  the  character,  the 
principles,  the  conduct  of  the  first  settlers  of  New 
England,  and  an  estimate  of  the  extent  to  which 
they  have  affected  our  past,  and  are  to  shape  our 


11 


future,  history,  I  should  feel  greatly  embarrassed, 
were  I  not  assured  that  the  whole  general  outline  of 
the  subject  is  already  in  your  minds  and  memories, 
that  the  true  spirit  and  temper  for  its  consideration 
are  included  in  the  disposition  which  unites  you  in 
this  celebration.  Much  more  should  I  feel  oppressed, 
did  I  for  a  moment  suppose  that  the  interest  of  the 
occasion  was  at  all  dependent  upon  any  novelty  of 
fact  or  of  illustration,  or  demanded  a  brilliant  rhe- 
toric or  elaborate  oratory.  I  know  not  what  impres- 
sions the  near  examination  of  the  acts  and  motives 
of  the  Puritan  emigrants  may  produce  upon  others, 
but  to  myself  their  simple  grandeur  seems  to  need 
no  aid  from  vivid  coloring  or  artful  exaggeration, 
nor  to  incur  much  peril  from  imperfect  or  inadequate 
conceptions.  Resting  upon  the  imperishable  basis 
of  real  greatness  of  soul,  their  fame  no  praise  can 
brighten  and  no  censure  dim. 

The  seeds  of  the  movement  which  was  to  eman- 
cipate religion  from  prelatical  control,  and  re-estab- 
lish the  equality  of  men  before  their  common  Father, 
were  sown  in  the  English  mind  by  Wickliffe.  Though 
their  dissemination  had  not  been  sufficient  greatly  to 
disturb  the  quiet  of  the  Church  or  break  the  peace 
of  the  realm,  yet  when,  one  hundred  and  fifty  years 
afterwards,  Luther  and  Zuingle  proclaimed,  as  with 
a  trumpet,  the  great  Reformation,  and  raised  high 


12 


the  torch  of  religious  liberty,  the  people  of  England, 
from  this  previous  preparation,  the  more  readily  ac- 
cepted the  glad  tidings,  and  welcomed  the  new  light. 
While  the  pure  flames  of  religious  enthusiasm  were 
burning  in  the  hearts  of  his  people,  their  sovereign, 
Henry  VIII.,  threw  off  the  Papal  dominion  upon  a 
question,  personal  to  himself,  in  which  the  Pope  had 
proved  uncomplaisant  to  his  wishes.  He  usurped — 
for,  in  great  measure  at  least,  it  was  usurpation — the 
same  supremacy  in  matters  of  religion  which  he  had 
wrested  from  the  Pope,  and  declared  himself  the 
head  of  the  English  Church,  subjected  the  whole 
control  of  its  doctrine  and  discipline  to  the  temporal 
power,  gave  to  the  prelates  a  new  master,  but  in  no 
degree  satisfied  the  true  demand  of  the  movement 
among  his  people,  freedom  of  conscience  and  inde- 
pendency in  religion.  Preserving  still  an  attach- 
ment to  the  religious  tenets  of  the  Church  of  Rome, 
he  looked  with  equal  disfavor,  among  his  subjects, 
upon  adhesion  to  the  Eoman  pontiff,  and  desertion 
of  the  Romish  faith.  The  succeeding  reigns  of  his 
son  Edward  ani  his  daughter  Maiy,  gave  aid  and 
succor,  the  one  to  the  new  religion,  the  other  to  the 
ancient  faith ;  and  when  Elizabeth,  near  the  middle 
of  the  sixteenth  century,  assumed  the  crown,  she 
found  a  people  distracted  by  religious  contentions. 
The  singular  position  taken  by  King  Henry  had 


13 


tended  to  divide  the  realm  into  three  parties, — the 
Popish  recusants,  who  refused  to  acquiesce  in  the 
royal  usui-pation  of  the  Pope's  spiritual  dominion, — 
the  Protestant  malcontents,  unsatisfied  with  the  re- 
jection of  the  Pope's  temporal  authority  while  so 
much  of  the  corruption  of  Popery  remained  in  the 
ritual  and  worship, — and  the  supporters  of  the  Church 
of  England.  From  the  accession  of  Elizabeth,  by 
education  and  profession  a  Protestant,  the  more 
zealous  reformers  counted  upon  an  active  cooperation 
on  the  part  of  the  Crown  in  the  further  emanci- 
pation and  purification  of  religion.  As  matter  of 
personal  conviction,  the  Queen  was  not  so  fully 
weaned  from  the  old  faith,  but  that  she  retained  the 
crucifix  in  her  own  chapel,  and  attempted  its  resto- 
ration in  the  churches  ;  and  through  her  whole  reign 
she  refused  a  legal  sanction  to  the  marriage  of  the 
clergy.  But  as  matter  of  state  policy  and  govern- 
ment she  early  adopted,  and  steadily  pursued,  a  sys- 
tem still  more  fatal  to  the  hopes  of  the  party  of 
progress  in  the  church.  That  great  and  politic  com- 
promise, the  Church  Establishment,  for  reasons  wise 
or  unwise,  she  and  her  statesmen  adopted  as  the  true 
and  safe  solution  of  the  religious  distractions  of  her 
people,  and  confm'mity  to  its  dogmas  and  its  cere- 
monies, was  exacted  alike  from  the  sullen  Catholic 
and  the  ardent  Protestant.  What  till  now  had  been 


14 


a  war  of  opinion,  and  about  matters  in  theraselves  of 
much  indifferency,  between  the  two  divisions  of 
Protestants,  became  a  war  of  persecution  by  the 
Government  upon  the  offending  faction.  For  non- 
conformity, to  every  degree  of  disfavor  and  annoy- 
ance, were  gradually  added  the  graver  punishments 
of  stripes,  imprisonment,  and  death. 

The  party  which  contended  for  a  more  thorough 
and  complete  reformation  of  religion,  and  against 
whom  the  state-craft  of  Elizabeth  conceived  these 
machinations  and  executed  these  oppressions,  re- 
ceived from  its  opponents  the  name  of  Puritans. 
They  were  neither  sectarian  nor  schismatical — nor, 
as  yet,  dissenters ;  they  were  the  front  of  the  Prot- 
estant host  in  the  still  pending  warfare  with  the 
Church  of  Rome :  in  their  judgment  the  main  battle 
of  Protestantism  in  England  was  not  completely 
won,  much  less  its  final  triumph  assured,  and  they 
would  hold  no  truce  with  the  ancient  superstition. 
They  would  tolerate  no  defence  of  the  surplice  and 
the  cap,  of  the  cross  in  baptism,  or  the  ring  in  mar- 
riage, on  the  plea  that  their  retention  would  con- 
ciliate the  Papists,  and  reduce  that  disaffection. 
With  a  large  part  of  the  people  of  England  still 
clinging  to  the  old  faith,  and  much  the  greater  por- 
tion of  the  benefices  of  the  Church  filled  by  dissem- 
bling Protestants,  ready  to  "resume  their  mass- 


15 


books  with  more  alacrity  tliaii  they  had  laid  them 
aside,"  the  Puritan  clergy  and  laity  refused  their  ad- 
hesion to  the  policy  of  the  Crown,  and  struggled 
against  conformity.  To  the  strenuousness  of  their 
resistance  to  this  specious  compromise  of  the  rights 
of  conscience  for  the  peace  of  the  realm,  it  may  well 
be  thought,  England  owes  her  safety  from  relapse 
into  Popery. 

The  party  of  the  Puritans  too,  was  neither  small 
in  numbers  nor  made  up  from  any  one  class  of  socie- 
ty. Strongest  in  London  and  other  large  towns,  and 
among  the  merchants  and  tradesmen,  during  the 
reign  of  Elizabeth,  it  also  embraced,  according  to 
Hallam,  a  majority  of  the  Protestant  gentry  of  Eng- 
land, and  included  not  a  few  eminent  nobles.  The 
clergy,  below  the  grade  of  high  ecclesiastics,  most 
famous  for  talents,  learning  and  eloquence,  espoused 
the  cause  of  progress,  and  so  nearly  did  they  come 
to  a  majority  of  the  Convocation  of  1562,  that  a 
proposition  to  abolish  the  offensive  usages  failed  by 
but  a  single  vote ;  the  records  of  Parliament  through- 
out the  reign  of  Elizabeth  show  that  the  control  of 
the  Commons  was  in  the  hands  of  the  Puritans.  In- 
deed, things  were  not  far  from  the  condition  which 
they  reached  in  a  succeeding  reign,  when,  as  Car- 
lyle  asserts,  "  either  in  conscious  act,  or  in  clear 
tendency,  the  far  greater  part  of  the  serious  thought 


1(\ 

and  manhood  of  England  had  declared  itself  Pu- 
ritan." 

The  zeal  of  persecution  did  not  long  suffer  the 
controversy  to  be  waged  upon  mere  forms  and  cere- 
monies, but  transferred  the  conflict  to  a  battle  for 
the  rights  of  conscience.  The  inquiries  into  the  just 
limitations  of  might  and  right  in  spiritual  mattei*8, 
in  turn,  were  directed  to  civil  affairs,  and  the  train  of 
causes  was  set  at  work,  which  at  length  overthrew 
the  English  monarchy  and  built  up  this  republic  in 
the  West. 

I  have  thus  far  described  the  relations  of  the 
great  body  of  the  Puritans  to  the  Reformation  and 
the  English  Church,  but  there  was  gradually  devel- 
oped among  them  a  sect  or  division  which  boldly 
pushed  the  questions  at  issue  to  their  ultimate  and 
legitimate  solution ;  which  threw  off  all  connection 
with  the  Established  Church,  rejected  alike  the  sur- 
plice and  the  bishops,  the  prayer-book  and  the  cere- 
monies, and,  resting  upon  the  Bible,  sought  no  less 
than  to  restore  the  constitution  of  the  Christian 
Church  to  the  primitive  simplicity  in  which  it  was 
first  instituted.  These  Separatists,  as  they  were 
called,  put  in  practi<je  their  theoretical  opinions  by 
the  formation  of  churches  in  which  the  members 
were  the  source  of  all  power  and  controlled  its  ad- 
ministration, and,  in  a  word,  applied  to  ecclesiastical 


17 


organizations  principles  wHch,  if  introduced  into 
civil  government,  would  produce  a  pure  democracy. 

In  the  ^'  mean  townlet  of  Scrooby,''  in  Xotting- 
hamsliire,  recent  investigations  liave  accurately  as- 
certained, was  collected  the  Puritan  congregation  of 
Separatists,  from  which  proceeded  the  fii^st  settle- 
ment of  New  England.  They  united  themselves  in 
the  simple  and  solemn  compact  of  a  church  covenant 
about  the  year  1602,  and  found  a  place  of  worship, 
strangely  enough,  in  an  Episcopal  manor-house  be- 
longing to  the  See  of  York,  but  in  the  tenancy  of 
William  Brewster.  John  Robinson  soon  became 
theii-  minister,  and  for  several  years  they  there  sus- 
tained, as  best  they  might,  the  pei-secutions  of  the 
civil  power,  and  maintained  their  worship.  This 
Chi'istian  Church,  collected  from  a  simple  agricul- 
tural population  in  a  rude  part  of  England,  remote 
from  any  great  centre  of  influence,  was  the  seed  se- 
lected, in  the  wisdom  of  Providence,  for  the  planta- 
tion of  a  new  community  in  this  Western  world. 
With  the  formation  of  this  Cono^res^ational  Church 
commences  the  history  of  New  England,  for  this 
compacted,  organized  body,  this  social  unit,  made  up 
and  fitly  framed  together  in  England,  and  thus  as  an 
aggregate  and  perfect  whole,  transported  to  Ameri- 
ca, made  the  first  settlement  at  Plymouth. 

We  at  once  perceivo  that  we  have  here  before 

2 


18 


us  the  ripened  germ,  ready  to  be  severed  from  tlie 
parent  stock,  whence  was  to  proceed  the  future 
growth,  under  the  eternal  law  of  development  by 
which  seeds  produce,  each  after  its  kind.  As  yet 
this  little,  this  peculiar  community,  had  formed  no 
conscious  plan  or  project  looking  to  the  foundation 
of  a  new  society,  much  less  of  an  independent  state. 
Yet,  whatever  of  preparatory  disci} )line  it  was  to 
submit  to  in  the  interval,  whatever  circumstances,  as 
yei  uncertain,  were  to  determine  where  and  when  it 
should  germinate  and  be  developed,  the  elements  of 
weakness  or  of  strength,  the  qualities  decisive  of  the 
growth  which  should  come  from  it,  if  any  growth  it 
should  have,  were  fixed  and  complete.  Here,  then, 
is  the  true  point  at  which  to  observe  what  were  the 
important  elements  and  qualities  both  in  the  indi- 
vidual characters  of  these  men,  and  in  the  solemn 
and  intimate  bond  of  connection  that  held  them  to- 
gether,— in  reference,  always,  to  their  fitness  or  unfit- 
ness as  a  vehicle  for  the  transfer  of  the  religion  and 
civilization  of  the  old  to  the  new  world,  and  in  refer- 
ence also  to  the  nature  of  the  institutions  of  which 
they  were  suited  to  become  the  founders. 

In  the  first  place,  these  emigrants  were  drawn 
from  the  bosom  of  the  English  people^  in  distinction 
from  the  court,  the  nobility,  the  gentry,  the  learned 
professions; — their  condition  in  life  was  ordinary, 


19 


alike  removed  from  the  enervation  of  wealth  and 
the  servility  of  poverty,  and  having  all  the  inde- 
pendence which  belongs  to  intelligent  and  laborious 
industry  ; — they  were,  in  the  main,  a  rural  and  agri- 
cultural people,  and  of  the  sober,  reflective,  self- 
dependent  temper  which  such  pursuits  cherish ; 
their  condition,  as  among  themselves,  was  equal; 
they  stood  together  in  their  common  manhood  un- 
distinguished, save  only  by  those  differences  which 
intellect,  and  character,  and  culture,  make  among 
men. 

In  the  second  place,  they  had  all  the  instruction 
and  experience  in  personal  rights  and  their  enjoy- 
ment, which  even  at  that  day  distinguished  the  con- 
dition of  Englishmen,  and,  outside  of  any  special 
pressure  of  the  Government  in  particular  matters  of 
state  or  church  policy,  were  a  large  and  valuable 
possession  to  the  people  of  England.  They  might 
be  oppressed  by  cruel,  unjust  or  impious  laws^  but 
had  important  and,  in  general,  efficient  guaranties 
against  oppression  in  violation  of  law.  A  common 
law,  being  nothing  else  than  the  adaptation  of  the 
immutable  principles  of  general  j  ustice  and  common 
right  to  the  ever- varying  circumstances  of  human 
affairs,  the  public  administration  of  justice,  a  partici- 
pation as  jurors  in  such  administration,  security  by 
the  habeas  corpus  agairst  illegal  restraint,  an  invio- 


20 


lable  threshold,  and  a  representation  in  the  Com- 
mons which  controlled  the  supplies, — tliase  were  some 
of  the  rights  of  Englishmen  in  which  the  Puritan 
emigrants  possessed  a  share. 

But  the  traits  which  most  command  our  atten- 
tion, both  from  intrinsic  dignity  and  the  absorbing 
influence  on  their  conduct,  are  the  depth  of  their 
religious  convictions,  the  purity  of  their  religious 
sentiments,  and  the  fervor  of  their  Christian  faith. 
If  our  Pm-itan  forefathers  in  civil  station  and  worldly 
estate  ranked  among  the  common  people  of  England, 
the  disdain  of  courtiers  and  the  scorn  of  prelates, 
they  seemed  to  themselves  children  of  a  nobler 
lineage,  and  consecrated  of  an  elder  priesthood  than 
those  Avho  despised  them.  To  them  religion  and  its 
laws  of  worth  and  dignity  were  not  only  realities, 
but  the  sole  realities  ;  Christianity  was  not  only  true, 
but  its  spirit  and  its  precepts  were  the  all-sufficient 
guide  and  rule  of  life  ;  God  they  not  only  revered, 
with  a  distant  awe,  as  the  Creator  of  the  world  and 
the  Ruler  of  events,  but  in  the  boldness  of  a  filial 
adoption  confided  in  him  as  the  Father  of  their 
spirits,  the  watchful  Protector  of  their  daily  walk ; 
wealth  in  earthly  possessions,  power  in  temporal 
sway,  they  counted  as  nothing  beside  the  riches  and 
the  glories  of  the  spiritual  kingdom;  the  pride  of 
life,  the  pleasures  of  sense,  all  pomp  and  magnificence 


21 


seemed  but  dust  and  ashes  to  the  substantial  joys 
and  eflPulgent  splendors  of  the  spiritual  life.  Not 
less  was  the  indifference  to  the  toils  and  hardships, 
the  suflferings,  privations  and  afflictions  of  the  present 
time,  begotten  by  the  high  hopes  and  sure  rewards 
of  their  vivid  faith.  The  enemies  that  they  dreaded 
were  the  enemies  of  their  souls,  the  encounters  to 
them  most  formidable  were  with  the  great  adversary, 
the  evils  they  feared  were  the  frailty  and  the  wicked- 
ness of  their  own  natures,  the  victories  they  aimed 
at  were  over  temptation  and  sin,  the  conquest  they 
strove  for  was  over  their  own  spirits. 

In  an  age  when  faith  has  grown  colder,  when 
religion  is  much  less  a  matter  of  public  and  general 
thought,  when  outward  and  ostensible  enterprises 
for  the  moral  and  spiritual  advancement  of  man  at- 
tract and  absorb  whatever  activity  is  spared  from 
purely  worldly  pursuits,  these  elevations  of  spirit 
seem,  to  many,  inconsistent  with  the  calm  and  sober 
performance  of  duty  which  marked  the  conduct  of 
these  men.  Some  stigmatize  them  as  the  vagaries 
of  a  vulgar  fanaticism,  others  pardon  them  as  the 
extravagancies  of  a  generous  enthusiasm,  but  we  ac- 
knowledge them  as  an  essential  element  in  the  agen- 
cies which  were  to  operate  great  social  and  political 
revolutions  at  home,  and  found  and  build  up  a  great 
nation  abroad. 


22 


Passing  from  this  brief  and  imperfect  examina- 
tion of  the  character  of  these  emigrants  themselves, 
mark  now  the  peculiar  association  in  which  they 
were  united,  and  in  which  they  were  to  leave  their 
native  land  and  ultimately  to  seek  these  shores.  It 
was  an  independent,  isolated,  Christian  Church,  part 
of  no  estaLlishment,  subordinate  to  no  hierarchy, 
and  having  no  relations  outside  of  itself.    I  propose 
no  observations,  mystical  or  ecclesiastical,  concerning 
it  as  a  church,  l>ut  simj^ly  a  consideration  of  the 
principles  on  which  its  formation  as  a  social  unit 
rested,  and  in  reference  to  its  convertibility,  when 
need  should  be,  into  an  independent  community  and 
complete  body  politic. 

And  first  we  notice  that  this  community  was  or- 
ganized, as  its  fundamental  discrimination  from  the 
system  of  prelacy,  upon  the  notion  that  the  members 
were  the  source  and  depository  of  all  power,  that  by 
their  election  all  offices  were  to  be  filled,  and  that 
the  suffi-age  was  equal  and  universal. 

We  next  observe  that  the  tie  wdiich  bound  the 
members  together  had  no  reference  to  selfish  inter- 
ests or  the  pursuit  of  gain,  but  was  that  of  brother- 
hood, and  for  the  culture  of  their  higher  nature  and 
the  promotion  of  their  supreme  welfare.  Mutual 
support  and  aid,  counsel,  sympathy,  a  bearing  of 
each  other's  burdens,  a  participation  in  each  other  s 


23 


joys  and  sorrows,  conflicts  and  triiimplis,  were  tlie 
rigiit  and  the  duty  of  each  in  respect  to  all. 

Add  to  this,  that  this  union  was  permanent,  that 
it  embraced  the  family  as  well  as  the  individual ; 
that  it  presupposed  concert  and  consent  as  to  the 
objects  and  ends  of  life  ;  that  it  ever  confirmed  and 
constantly  cherished  unity  of  purpose ;  that  it  in- 
volved a  thorough  acquaintance  with  each  by  all  in 
the  most  sincere  and  intimate  sense  ;  and  that 
around  all  was  thrown  the  solemn  sanction  of  divine 
authority,  and  you  have  a  little  community  with 
more  of  the  true  social  spirit  to  hold  it  together, 
and  less  chance  or  scope  for  the  operation  of  selfish 
discords  to  weaken  or  dissolve  it,  than  ever  has  been, 
or  ever  can  be,  otherwise  constituted. 

To  this  Puritan  congregation  the  cruel  alternative 
was  soon  presented,  between  expatriation  and  aban- 
donment of  their  religious  worship  ;  for  to  this  pitch 
had  the  civil  power  pushed  its  persecutions.  They 
chose  to  turn  their  backs  upon  their  homes  and 
their  possessions,  and,  to  use  their  own  language, 
"by  joint  consent  they  resolved  to  go  to  the  low 
countries,  where  they  heard  was  freedom  of  religion 
to  all  men.''  For  twelve  years,  in  patient,  though 
ungrateful  toil,  in  occupations  unfamiliar  and  uncon- 
genial, amid  a  crowded  population,  speaking  a  foreign 
tongue,  and  with  customs  strange  to  their  English 


24 


notions,  they  led  an  honest  life  and  maintained  their 
religious  woi-ship.  They  have  left  a  record  of  the 
reasons  and  the  influences  which  induced  them  to 
leave  Holland  and  seek  the  remote,  unpeopled 
wilderness  within  the  nominal  sovereignty  of  Eng- 
land. It  is  quite  apparent  from  a  perusal  of  their 
own  statements,  that  on  leaving  England  they  had 
no  other  view  than  a  peaceable  life  with  the  enjoy- 
ment of  religious  liberty,  looking  no  further ;  that 
as  they  advanced  in  yeai-s  and  their  children  grew 
up  around  them,  the  probable  fortunes  of  their  pos- 
terity were  forced  upon  their  attention.  They  fore- 
saw that  their  individuality  and  nationality,  their 
language,  the  very  religion  which  was  dearer  than 
life  or  country  to  them,  would  be  swallowed  up  in 
the  general  population  of  Holland.  For  themselves, 
they  would  have  cared  little  whether  their  short 
sojourn  before  they  were  removed  to  "  heaven,  their 
dearest  country,"  were  in  one  place  or  another ;  but 
for  their  children  and  later  posterity  they  desired 
the  birthright  of  Englishmen,  and  for  the  pure  and 
primitive  forms  of  Christianity  which  they  possessed, 
and  at  so  costly  sacrifice  had  preserved,  they  sought 
a  permanent  establishment  and  a  wider  diffusion. 

Under  these  impulses,  led  by  these  motives,  to 
enjoy  liberty  of  conscience  and  pure  scriptural  wor- 
ship, to  enlarge  his  majesty's  dominions  and  advance 


25 


the  kingdom  of  Christ ;  or,  in  other  words,  to  found 
a  new  society  where  the  Christian  religion  and  Eng- 
lish law  should  prevail,  religious  liberty  flourish  and 
a  pure  faith  be  preserved,  our  Pilgrim  fathers  pro- 
jected and  accomplished  the  perilous  passage  of  the 
wide  ocean,  braved  the  unknown  dangers  of  a 
wilderness,  and  on  this  day,  two  hundred  and  thirty- 
four  years  ago,  landed  on  the  Kock  of  Plymouth. 
Thus  did  they,  with  a  true  filial  devotion,  cling  to 
the  skirts  of  the  ungracious  mother  from  whose 
bosom  they  had  been  so  rudely  repelled,  and  thus 
did  the  stone,  which  the  builders  of  English  liberty, 
and  English  law,  and  English  power,  rejected, 
become  the  bead  of  the  corner  of  our  constituted 
state. 

Well  might  Milton,  the  brightest  star  in  the 
fii-mament  of  English,  no  less  than  of  Puritan,  liter- 
ature, mourn  the  great  loss  to  England  from  this 
emigration,  led  by  the  Pilgrims,  and  closely  followed 
by  so  much  of  the  worth  and  strength  of  the  nation, 
and  sadly  forebode  for  the  fortunes  of  the  parent 
state  thus  bereaved.  "  What  numbers  of  faithful 
and  free-born  Englishmen  and  good  Christians  have 
been  constrained  to  forsake  their  dearest  home,  their 
friends  and  kindred,  whom  nothing  but  the  wide 
ocean  and  the  savage  deserts  of  America  could  hide 
and  shelter  from  the  fury  of  the  bishops.   Oh,  if  we 


26 


could  but  see  the  shape  of  our  dear  mother  Eng- 
land, as  poets  are  wont  to  give  a  personal  foi*ni  to 
what  they  please,  how  would  she  appear,  tliliik  ye, 
but  in  a  mourning  weed,  witli  ashes  upon  her  head, 
and  tears  a]>undantly  flowing  from  her  eyes,  to  be- 
hold so  many  of  her  children  exposed  at  once,  and 
thrust  from  things  of  dearest  necessity,  because  their 
conscience  could  not  assent  to  things  which  the 
Ijishops  thought  indifferent  ?  Let  the  astrologers  be 
dismayed  at  the  portentous  blaze  of  comets  and  im- 
pressions in  the  air,  as  foretelling  troubles  and 
changes  to  states ;  I  shall  believe  there  cannot  be  a 
more  ill-boding  sign  to  a  nation  (God  turn  the  omen 
from  us !  )  than  when  the  inhabitants,  to  avoid  in- 
sufterable  grievances  at  home,  are  enforced  by  heaps 
to  leave  their  native  country." 

It  has  been  the  custom  of  poets,  of  orators,  and 
of  historians,  iis  they  looked  upon  this  little  frag- 
ment of  population, — torn  from  the  bosom  of  a  pow- 
erful state,  driven  from  the  shelter  of  established 
law,  outcast  from  the  civilization  of  the  world,  thrust, 
as  it  were,  unarmed  and  naked  into  a  fierce  struggle 
with  rigorous,  inexorable  nature, — to  pity  its  weak- 
ness, dej^lore  its  trials,  and  despair  of  its  fate.  If 
the  view  be  confined  to  the  mere  outward  aspect  of 
the  scene  and  the  actors,  if  you  omit  their  real  his- 
tory and  overlook  their  actual  character  and  connec- 


27 


tion,  if  you  would  regard  them  as  a  casual  group 
thrown  on  the  shore  from  the  jaws  of  shipwreck,  or 
from  some  dire  social  convulsion,  the  picture  of  fee- 
bleness, of  misery,  of  hopelessness,  can  scarcely  be 
exaggerated. 

But,  unless  my  analysis  of  their  character  and 
deduction  of  their  history  has  wholly  failed  of  its 
purpose,  we  cannot  resist  the  conviction  that,  as  the 
beginning  of  a  new  community,  as  the  foundation 
of  an  original  and  separate  civil  society,  as  the  germ 
and  nucleus  of  an  independent  political  state,  this 
band  of  first  settlers  included  as  many  elements  and 
guaranties  of  strength,  of  safety,  and  of  growth,  as 
lay  within  the  whole  resources  of  human  nature,  or 
could  be  added  from  the  supports  of  a  divine  re- 
ligion. 

All  the  traits  and  qualities  of  personal  manhood, 
and  in  as  large  measure  as,  before  or  since,  their 
countrymen  or  ours  have  attained  to,  they  possessed  ; 
the  attendance  of  their  wives  and  children  carried 
into  whatever  strange  wilderness  a  present  home, 
and  stamped  the  settlement  as  permanent,  not  fugi- 
tive ;  they  were  equipped  with  all  the  weaponry  of 
substantial  education,  furnished  with  sufficient  stores 
of  ordinary  learning,  trained  in  a  discipline  of  prac- 
tical experience,  better  than  proof  armor  in  the 
warfare  they  were  to  wage. 


28 


Nor  was  the  preparation  of  their  spirits  for  the 
great  undertaking  less  fit  and  sufficient.  As  they 
did  not  fear  death,  no  terror  could  frigliten  tliem 
from  their  purpose ;  as  they  did  not  love  pleasure, 
no  present  privations  could  appall  them,  no  sensual 
attractions  allure  them  back ;  as  they  were  l)ut  as 
wayfarers  upon  the  earth,  with  no  abiding-place, 
pursuing  only  the  path  of  duty,  wherever  they 
pitched  their  moving  tent,  each  setting  sun  would 
find  them  "  a  day's  march  nearer  home.'' 

As  the  love  of  gain,  the  wild  spirit  of  adventure, 
the  lust  of  dominion,  had  no  share  in  bringing  them 
across  the  seas,  so  no  disappointments  or  discontents 
of  a  selfish  nature  could  enfeeble,  distract,  dissolve 
their  union  ;  as  the  bonds  of  their  confederacy  were 
spiritual  and  immortal,  no  natural  afflictions  or  tem- 
poral disasters  could  absolve  the  reciprocal  duty,  or 
break  the  mutual  faith,  in  which  they  were  knit  to- 
gether as  the  soul  of  one  man. 

Esteeming,  as  we  must,  that  our  Pilgrim  ances- 
tors brought  to  these  shores  whatever  of  essential 
strength  there  wjs  in  the  civilization  which  they 
left,  and  whatever  of  power  there  is  in  a  living 
Christian  faith, — that  their  coming  was  absolutely 
void  of  all  guileful  purpose,  and  their  association 
vital  in  every  part  with  true  social  energy,  we  may  well 
consider  the  laments  at  the  feebleness,  and  distrusts 


29 


of  the  issue,  of  their  enterprise,  as  more  fanciful 
than  philosophical. 

What,  then,  though  their  numbers  were  few  and 
their  persons  ordinary ;  what  though  the  dark  frown 
of  winter  hung  over  the  scene,  and  the  sad  cry  of 
the  sorrowing  sea-birds,  and  the  perpetual  moan  of 
the  vexed  ocean,  breathed  around  them  ;  what 
though  the  deeper  shadoAV  of  death,  the  sadder 
wail  of  the  dying  and  the  bereaved  were  in  their 
midst ;  what  though  want  had  possession  of  their 
camj),  and  starvation  threatened  at  their  outposts  ? 
Strong  in  human  patience,  fortitude,  courage  to  bear 
or  to  remedy  whatever  it  was  in  human  nature  to 
endure,  or  in  human  power  to  cure,  and  for  the  rest, 
mightier  still  in  the  supports  of  their  sublime  faith, 
with  the  prophet's  fervor,  each  one  of  them  could 
exclaim,  "Although  the  fig-tree  shall  not  blossom, 
neither  shall  fruit  be  in  the  vines  ;  the  labor  of  the 
olive  shall  fail,  and  the  fields  shall  yield  no  meat ; 
the  flock  shall  be  cut  off  from  the  fold,  and  there 
shall  be  no  herd  in  the  stalls :  yet  I  will  rejoice  in 
the  Lord,  I  will  joy  in  the  God  of  my  salvation." 

Equally  propitious  to  the  beneficent  character  of 
the  institutions  they  were  to  build  up  was  it,  that, 
while  they  brought  with  them  such  amazing  ele- 
ments of  vigor  and  freedom,  they  left  behind  them 
almost  all  that  had  deformed  and  burdened  the  'de- 


30 


velopment  of  the  state,  and  all  the  incrustations  and 
corruptions  that  liad  overlaid  the  Church  and  defiled 
religion.  King,  nobles,  gentry,  all  fixed  ranks,  all 
prerogatives,  all  condescensions,  all  servilities,  they 
were  for  ever,  in  a  social  sense,  delivered  from  ;  the 
whole  hierarchy,  l>isliops  and  priests,  canons  and 
convocations,  courts  ecclesiastical  and  high  commis- 
sions, rites  and  ceremonies,  were  at  once  thrown  off 
and  utterly  ignored  ;  all  tliiit  could  assist,  confirm, 
enlarge  and  liberalize  society,  they  brouglit  with 
them,  unembarrassed  witli  aught  that  could  thwart, 
trammel  or  impede  its  advancement. 

That  before  the  emigrants  left  Holland,  they  de- 
signed to  become  a  body  politic,  using  among  them- 
selves civil  government,  and  choosing  their  own 
magistrates ;  that  in  preparation  for  their  landing 
they  made  a  formal  compact  or  covenant  to  that  end, 
and  that,  without  break  or  interval  from  that  mo- 
ment, they  and  their  descendants,  to  this  hour,  have 
maintained  free  government  (notwithstanding  it  was 
so  long  colonial  and  dependent)  ;  that  from  the 
same  stock  their  numbers  were  supplied  and  in- 
creased, and  that  from  the  same  stock  and  under 
the  same  lead  and  impulses,  the  Massachusetts  colony 
was  founded  ;  that  the  Connecticut  and  'New  Haven 
colonies  sprung  from  their  loins,  while  that  of  Rhode 
Island  grew  out  of  their  intolerance  ;  and,  in  fine, 


31 


that  all  'New  England,  as  it  has  been  and  is,  grew 
up,  as  naturally  as  the  oak  from  the  acorn,  from  this 
seed  planted  at  Plymouth,  I  need  only  to  suggest. 

The  institutions  founded  by  the  fathers  of  New 
England  were  new  in  the  affairs  of  men,  and  greatly 
in  advance  of  whatever  past  experience  had  shown 
possible  in  human  condition ;  the  civil  prudence  of 
their  age  regarded  them  but  as  the  experiments  of 
the  model  and  the  laboratory,  successful  only  by 
exclusion  of  the  friction  and  disturbance  of  great 
and  various  interests,  and  by  shelter  from  the  stormy 
elements  nursed  in  the  bosom  of  every  large  society ; 
the  cold  eye  of  tyranny  yet  watches  for  the  hour 
when  the  heats  of  passion  shall  dissolve,  or  the 
frosts  of  selfishness  shall  crumble  their  whole  fabric  ; 
still,  their  foundations  stand  sure,  and  their  dome 
ascends  and  widens  in  ampler  and  am23ler  circles. 

But  the  sjjirit  of  liberty  is  no  new  impulse  in 
human  conduct,  no  new  agent  in  the  history  of  states 
and  nations  ;  yet  it  is  generally  regarded  as  the  main 
impulse  in  the  action  of  our  forefathers,  which  is 
without  a  parallel, — as  the  effective  agent  in  their 
constructive  achievement,  which  is  without  a  pre- 
cedent. 

The  truth  is,  with  our  Pilgrim  fathers  liberty 
never  was  valued  as  an  end,  though  as  a  means  to 
duty  it  was  worthier  than  all  other  possessions,  and 


32 


dearer  than  life  itself.  Emancipation  fi*om  existing 
authority  they  souglit  only  to  suljject  themselves  to 
a  more  thorough  discipline  ;  loyalty  to  a  ruler  they 
rejilaced  by  obedience  to  law ;  they  threw  off  the 
yoke  of  their  king  only  to  pursue  the  stricter  service 
of  their  God.  They  cherished,  they  cultivated,  they 
sheltered,  they  defended,  they  watered  with  their 
tears  and  with  their  blood,  the  fair  flower  of  liberty, 
but  only  that  they  might  feed  upon  its  sober,  some- 
times its  bitter,  fruit,  duty. 

The  mere  passion  for  liberty  has  overthrown 
many  dynasties  and  torn  in  pieces  many  communities ; 
it  has  an  immense  energy  to  upset  and  destroy ;  but 
here  its  work  ends,  unless  it  be  attended  by  a  sound 
conce]3tion  and  faithful  acceptance  of  the  grand  con- 
structive ideas  of  law  and  duty,  to  hold  up  the  tot- 
tering, or  to  rebuild  the  ruined,  state.  We  pro- 
nounce, then,  that  the  highest  fidelity  to  law,  and 
the  sincerest  devotion  to  duty,  were  the  controlling 
sentiments  of  om^  ancestors  in  their  walk  and  work. 

Nor  did  our  Puritan  fathers  teach,  either  by 
lesson  or  example,  that  all  men  are  capable  of  politi- 
cal self-government.  Their  doctrine  and  their  prac- 
tice alike  reject  such  folly,  and  give  this  as  the  de- 
monstration and  the  truth,  that  men  capable  of 
governing  themselves  as  men,  are  able  to  maintain  a 
free  civil  state  as  citizens.    While  they  knew  that  a 


33 


strong  people  neither  need,  nor  will  endure,  a  strong 
government,  they  no  less  knew  that  strength  must 
be  somewhere,  in  people  or  government,  to  hold  any 
political  society  together,  and  their  practical  politics 
were  directed  by  this  conviction. 

ISTor  was  equality  of  riglit  in  the  citizens  relied 
on  as  an  adequate  social  principle  to  preserve  the 
peace,  and  advance  and  develope  the  power  of  the 
commonwealth.  That,  both  from  their  actual  tem- 
poral condition,  and  from  their  religious  opinions, 
equality  of  right  would  be,  in  its  just  sense,  recog- 
nized and  acted  upon,  was  inevitable.  But  equality 
of  right,  standing  alone,  is  a  principle  eminently  dis- 
social, and  paralyzing  to  all  high  and  worthy  pro- 
gress of  the  general  welfare.  It  may  answer  for  a 
band  of  robbers  to  divide  their  spoils  by,  or  victo- 
rious barons  to  apportion  the  conquered  land.  But 
join  with  equality  of  right,  as  did  the  first  planters 
of  New  England,  community  of  interest  and  reci- 
procity of  duty,  as  the  controlling  sentiments,  and 
you  infuse  a  genuine  public  spirit,  and  evolve  a 
strenuous  social  activity,  which  will  never  weary  and 
never  fail ;  you  produce,  indeed,  the  efficient  causes 
and  influences  which  have  animated  and  directed  the 
immense  expansion  of  American  society,  the  actual 
development  of  American  character. 

It  is  worth  our  while  to  observe,  from  the  very 
3 


34 


earliest  documents  of  the  emigration  and  settlement, 
how  well  the  necessity  and  the  grounds  of  a  true 
public  spirit  were  understood,  and  how  earnestly  they 
were  insisted  on.  In  their  letter  from  Leyden  to 
the  Virginia  Company,  Eoljinson  and  Brewster  thus 
recite  one  of  the  grounds  of  just  expectation  for  the 
success  of  the  projected  community.  "  We  are  knit 
together  as  a  body  in  a  more  strict  and  sacred  bond 
and  covenant  of  the  Lord,  of  the  violation  whereof 
we  make  great  conscience  ;  and  by  virtue  whereof 
we  do  hold  ourselves  straitly  tied  to  all  care  of  each 
other'' s  good^  and  of  the  whole  hy  every ^  and  so  niu- 
tuaV  In  his  parting  letter  upon  the  embarcation 
Robinson  enjoins,  "  a  thing  there  is  carefully  to  be 
provided  for,  to  wit,  that  with  your  common  em- 
ployments you  join  common  affiections,  truly  bent 
upon  the  general  good ;  avoiding,  as  a  deadly  plague 
of  your  both  common  and  special  comfort,  all  re- 
tiredness  of  mind  fo)'  proper  advantage^  and  all 
singularly  affected  any  manner  of  way.  Let  every 
man  repress  in  himself  and  the  whole  body  in  each 
person,  as  so  many  rebels  against  the  common  good, 
all  private  respects  of  men's  selves,  not  sorting  with 
the  general  conveniency."  And  thus  Cushman  ex- 
horts the  whole  society,  just  a  year  after  the  land- 
ing: "Now,  brethren,  I  pray  you  remember  your- 
selves, and  know  that  you  are  not  in  a  retired  mo- 


35 


nastical  course,  but  liave  given  your  names  and 
promises  one  to  anotlier  and  covenanted  here  to 
cleave  together  in  the  service  of  God  and  the  king. 
What  then  must  you  do  ?  May  you  live  as  retired 
hermits  and  look  after  nobody  ?  IN^ay,  you  must 
seek  still  the  wealth  of  one  another,  and  inquire  as 
David,  How  liveth  such  a  man  ?  how  is  he  clad  ? 
how  is  he  fed  ?  He  is  my  brother,  my  associate  ; 
we  ventured  our  lives  together  here  and  had  a  hard 
brunt  of  it ;  and  we  are  in  league  together.  Is  his 
labor  harder  than  mine  ?  Surely  I  will  ease  him. 
Hath  he  no  bed  to  he  on  ?  Why,  I  have  two ;  I'll  lend 
him  one.  Hath  he  no  apparel  ?  Why,  I  have  two. 
suits  ;  I  will  give  him  one  of  them.  Eats  he  coarse 
fare,  bread  and  water,  and  I  have  better  ?  Why, 
surely  we  will  part  stakes.  He  is  as  good  a  man  as 
I,  and  we  are  bound  to  each  other  ;  so  that  his  wants 
must  be  my  wants,  his  sorrows  my  sorrows,  his  sick- 
ness my  sickness,  and  his  welfare  my  welfare ;  for  I 
am  as  he  is.  And  such  a  sweet  sympathy  were  ex- 
cellent, comfortable,  yea,  heavenly,  and  is  the  only 
maker  and  conserver  of  churches  and  common- 
ivealths  •  and  where  this  is  wanting  ruin  comes  on 
quickly."  Such  was  their  temper,  such  their  intelli- 
gence, such  their  wisdom.  So  long  as  such  senti- 
ments pervade  a  community,  it  will  feel  no  lack  of 
public  spirit,  suffer  no  decay  of  public  virtue. 


36 


Add  to  these  principles,  what  is  uot  so  much  a 
separate  principle  as  a  comprehensive  truth,  lying  at 
the  bottom  of  the  whole  enterprise,  that  the  state 
and  the  church  were  made  for  man,  and  not  man 
for  the  government  and  the  priest — that  the  culture 
and  development  of  the  individual  membei^s  of  so- 
ciety, and  not  the  grandeur  or  glory  of  the  body 
politic,  were  the  superior  and  controlling  objects — 
and  that  such  culture  and  development  should  be 
religious  and  for  the  immortal  life,  and  you  have  all 
the  constituent  elements  and  forces  included  in  The 
Puritan  Commonwealth. 

And  they  were  ample  and  adequate,  and  thus 
far  have  been  so  proved ;  for  the  days  of  small 
things  and  for  the  most  magnificent  expansion  ;  for 
all  the  shocks  and  dangers  that  have  beset  the  feeble 
plantations,  the  growing  colonies,  the  heroic  confed- 
eration, the  united  people.  Nor  has  as  yet  appeared 
any  inherent  defect,  or  incongruous  working  in  the 
system,  which  demands  or  threatens  change.  Radi- 
calism cannot  dig  below  its  foundations,  for  it  rests 
upon  the  deepest  principles  of  our  nature ;  philan- 
thropy can  build  out  no  wider,  for  it  recognizes  the 
brotherhood  of  all  men ;  enthusiasm  can  mount  no 
higher,  for  it  rises  to  the  very  threshold  of  heaven. 
No  further  strength  or  firmer  stability  can  be  added 
to  it,  for  faith  among  men,  "  which  holds  the  moral 


elements  of  fhe  world  together,"  and  faith  in  God, 
which  binds  that  world  to  his  throne,  give  it  its  co- 
hesion and  its  poise. 

Some  question  has  been  made,  where  the  Puri- 
tan emigrants  learned,  and  whence  they  derived,  the 
great  thoughts  of  equality  and  freedom,  so  far  in 
advance  of  the  English  liberty  of  that  day,  or  even 
the  present,  so  much  deeper,  and  purer,  and  nobler, 
than  any  then  existing  civilization  could  have  sup- 
plied. One  of  your  own  orators^  has  thought  to  trace 
the  inspiration,  through  the  religious  exiles  of  Queen 
Mary's  reign,  who  found  at  Geneva  "  a  state  without 
a  king  and  a  church  without  a  bishop,"  "  backwards 
from  Switzerland  to  its  native  land  of  Greece  ; "  as 
if  unwilling  that  the  bright  flame  of  his  country's 
freedom  should  be  elsewhere  lighted,  than  at  those 
same  undying  Grecian  fires  which  have  kindled  the 
splendors  of  his  own  eloquence.  I,  rather,  find  the 
source  of  these  divine  impulses  in  the  Christian 
Scriptures,  whence  so  much  else  of  the  Puritan  char- 
acter drew  its  nourishment,  and  which  they  consulted 
ever,  as  an  oracle,  with  wrestling  and  with  prayer. 
I  seem  to  see  in  the  mature  designs  of  Him,  to  whom 
a  thousand  years  are  but  as  one  day,  who  moves  in 
his  own  appointed  times,  and  selects  and  prepares 
his  own  instruments,  the  re-enactment  of  the  first 

'  *  Mr.  Ohoate's  Oration,  1843. 


38 


scenes  of  the  Christian  dispensation,  in  the  establish- 
ment of  the  Christian  faith  upon  this  unpeopled  con- 
tinent— with  this  new  demonstration  and  this  new 
power  of  its  vital  energy,  as  well  for  the  reconstruc- 
tion of  all  human  institutions  as  for  the  regeneration 
of  the  soul — and  hail  the  Pilgrim  fathei^s  i\s  the 
bearers  of  a  new  commission,  than  which  there  has 
been  none  greater  since  the  time  of  the  Apostles. 

Time,  and  your  patience,  fail  me  to  insist  upon 
the  penetrating  forecast  and  wide  sagacity,  the  vast 
civil  prudence  and  exhaust  less  fidelity  with  which 
our  forefathei*s  sought,  upon  these  foundations,  to 
rear  a  fabric  of  liberty  and  law,  civilization  and  re- 
ligion, for  a  ha])itation  to  their  posterity  to  the  latest 
generation.  Yet  I  must  observe  that  all  their  care 
was  applied  directly  to  the  people  at  large,  to  the 
preservation  and  perpetuation  of  intelligence,  virtue 
and  piety  among  them ;  assured  that,  from  this  sup- 
port, good  government  and  free  government  were  of 
as  certain  growth  in  the  moral  constitution  of  things, 
as  is  the  natural  harvest  from  seed  well  sown -in  a 
grateful  soil.  Accordingly,  they  founded  a  system 
of  common  education,  not  expecting  to  make  the 
whole  people  learned,  but  to  make  them  intelligent, 
and  so  protect  them  from  that  oppression  which 
knowledge  can^  practise  upon  ignorance  ;  they  main- 
tained the  public  administration  of  justice,  and  con- 


39 


fined  it  to  the  common  law  system  and  procedure, 
not  anticipating  that  each  citizen  would  become  as 
profound,  or  as  erudite  in  his  special  science,  as  my 
Lord  Coke,  but  intending  that  common  right  and 
practical  justice  should  be  subserved,  and  not  de- 
frauded, by  all  the  profundity  and  erudition  in  the 
world ;  they  employed  the  holy  Sabbath,  and  gave 
it  full  measure  in  the  division  of  the  week,  in  public 
preaching,  exhortation  and  prayer ;  not  as  a  cere- 
monial expiation  or  a  servile  propitiation  for  the 
sins  of  the  people,  but  for  instruction  to  their  under- 
standings and  confirmation  of  their  faith  ;  and  above 
all,  the  Bible,  the  Bible  in  the  family,  the  Bible  in 
the  school,  the  Bible  in  the  church,  was  kept  ever 
under  the  eyes  and  in  the  ears  and  in  the  hearts  of 
the  people,  in  childhood,  in  manhood,  and  in  age ; 
for  Pope,  Prelate  and  Puritan  alike  agreed  that  this 
book  contained  the  oracles  of  their  religion,  and  our 
forefathers  knew,  by  impressive  experience,  that 
whichever,  Pope,  Prelate  or  People  had  the  keeping 
of  these  oracles,  held  the  keys  of  religious,  civil  and 
social  liberty. 

How,  from  these  never-failing  spring's,  for  every 
occasion  of  the  advancing  communities,  both  civic 
virtue  and  martial  spirit  were  supplied ;  how  as  early 
as  1643  the  four  'New  England  colonies  framed  arti- 
cles of  confederation,  vvhich  are  the  type  of  the 


40 


general  confederation  of  tlie  llevolution  and  of  the 
Federal  Union;  liow  in  tlic  Iiulian  wars  and  the 
French  campaigns,  the  warlike  vigor  of  the  people 
was  developed  and  disciplined ;  how  in  the  heroic 
toils  and  sacrifices  of  the  war  of  Independence,  and 
in  the  wise  counsels  and  generous  conciliations  which 
made  us  a  united  })eople,  New  England  bore  an  un- 
measured, an  unstinted  share ;  how  on  the  tide  of 
her  swelling  population  these  traits  of  her  foundei*s 
have  been  diffused  and  the  seeds  of  their  institutions 
disseminated,  why  should  I  relate  ?  They  are  the 
study  of  yourselves  and  of  your  children. 

Behold  now  in  these, — in  the  great  fame  of  the 
Puritan  exiles,  in  their  sublime  pilgrimage,  in  tlie 
society  they  founded,  in  the  States  they  built  up,  in 
the  liberty  and  the  law^,  in  the  religion  and  the  civili- 
zation they  established, — behold  our  Heritage  from 
them.  I  have  made  no  mention  of  the  immense  ter- 
ritory which  our  country's  bounds  include,  but  I 
have  shown  you  the  price  at  which  it  was  all  pur- 
chased, the  title  by  which  it  is  all  held  ;  I  have  not 
counted  the  heaped  up  treasures  of  your  wealth,  but 
I  have,  pointed  you  to  the  mine  whence  it  was  all 
digged,  to  the  fires  by  which  it  has  all  been  refined ; 
I  have  not  followed  the  frequent  sails  of  your  com- 
merce over  the  universal  sea,  but  I  have  shown  you, 
in  the  little  Mayflower,  the  foreruimer  of  your  in- 


41 


numerable  fleet ;  I  have  not  pictured  the  great  tem- 
ple, which  from  generation  to  generation  has  been 
raised,  the  home  of  justice,  the  habitation  of  free- 
dom, the  shrine  towards  which  the  hopes  of  all 
nations  tend,  but  I  have  explored  its  foundations 
and  laid  bare  its  corner-stone.  This  vast  material 
aggrandizement,  this  imperial  height  of  position,  we 
may  exult  in,  but  they  do  not  distinguish  us  from 
earlier,  and  now  ruined,  states ;  they  form  no  part 
of  our  peculiar  inheritance.  Green  grass  has  grown 
beneath  the  tread  of  other  nations,  and  for  them 
the  vine  has  dropped  its  purple  vintage,  and  the 
fields  turned  up  their  golden  harvest;  nature  has 
crowned  them  with  every  gift  of  plenty,  and  labor 
gained  for  them  overflowing  ivealth  ;  uncounted 
population  has  filled  their  borders,  victorious  arms 
pushed  on  their  limits,  and  glorious  art,  and  noble 
literature,  and  a  splendid  worship  spread  over  all, 
their  graces  and  their  dignities ;  but  justice  among 
men,  the  main  policy  of  all  civil  society,  and  fiiith 
in  God,  its  only  guaranty  of  permanence,  w^ere 
wanting  or  died  out,  and  they  were  turned  under 
by  the  ploughshare  of  Time  to  feed  a  nobler 
growth. 

As  we  value  this  heritage  which  we  have  thus 
received,  as  we  are  penetrated  with  wonder  and 
gratitude  at  the  costly  sacrifices  and  heroic  labors  of 


42 


our  ancestors,  by  which  it  lia-^  been  acrpiired  for  us  ; 
as  in  each  preceding  generation  we  observe  no  un- 
worthy defection  from  the  oi'iginal  stock,  no  waste 
of  the  rich  possession,  ljut  ever  its  jealous  protection, 
its  generous  increase,  so  do  we  feel  an  immeasurable 
obligation  to  transmit  this  heritage  unimpaired,  and 
yet  ampler,  to  our  posterity,  to  maintain  unbroken 
the  worth  and  honor  which  hitherto  hav^e  marked 
their  lineage.  This  ol)ligation  can  only  ])e  fulfilled 
by  imitating  the  wisdom  of  our  fathers,  by  observing 
tlie  maxims  of  their  policy,  studying  the  true  spirit 
of  their  institutions,  and  acting,  in  our  day,  and  in 
our  circumstances,  with  the  same  devotion  to  prin- 
ciple, the  same  fidelity  to  duty.  If  we  neglect  this, 
if  we  run  wild  in  the  enjoyment  of  the  great  inheri- 
tance, if  we  grow  arrogant  in  our  prosperity,  and 
cruel  in  our  power,  if  we  come  to  confound  freedom 
171  religion  with  freedom  from  religion,  and  inde- 
pendence %  law  with  independence  of  law,  if  we 
substitute  for  a  public  spirit  a  respect  to  private 
advantage,  if  we  run  from  all  civil  duties,  and  desert 
all  social  obligations,  if  we  make  our  highest  conser- 
vatism the  taking  care  of  ourselves,  our  shame  and 
our  disaster  will  alike  be  signal. 

I^or,  if  we  will  rightly  consider  the  aspect  of  our 
times,  and  justly  estimate  the  great  conflicting  social 
forces  at  work  in  the  nation,  shall  we  lack  for  noble 


43 


incentives  to  follow  in  the  bright  pathway  of  duty 
in  which  our  fathers  led,  nor  for  great  objects  to 
aim  at  and  accomplish.  While  we  rejoice  that  from 
no  peculiar  institutions  of  New  England  does  occa- 
sion of  discontent  or  disquietude  arise,  to  vex  the 
public  conscience,  or  disturb  the  public  serenity ; 
that  the  evils  and  dano^ers  of  is^norance  and  sloth 
are  imbedded  in  no  masses  of  her  population,  local 
or  derivative ;  that  not  for  her  children  are  borne 
our  heavy  burdens  of  pauperism  and  crime ;  let  us 
no  less  rejoice  that,  clogged  by  no  impediment  and 
exhausted  by  no  feebleness  of  her  own,  all  the  ener- 
gies of  New  England  may  be  devoted  to  succor  and 
sustain  at  every  point  of  weakness,  all  her  power  to 
uphold  and  confirm  every  element  of  strength,  in 
whatever  region  of  our  common  country,  in  what- 
ever portion  of  her  various  population. 

Guided  by  the  same  high  motives,  imbued  with 
the  same  deep  wisdom,  warmed  with  the  same  faith- 
ful spirit  as  were  our  ancestors,  what  social  evil  is 
there  so  great  as  shall  withstand  us,  what  public 
peril  so  dark  as  shall  dismay  us  ?  Men  born  in  the 
lifetime  of  Mary  AUerton,  the  last  survivor  of  the 
Mayflower's  company,  lived  through  the  Revolution  ; 
men  born  before  the  Revolution  still  live.  Of  the 
hundred  and  one  persons  who  landed  from  the 
Mayflower,  one  half  ^  ere  buried  by  early  spring; 


44 


yet  now  tlie  Mood  of  the  New  England  Puritans 
])eats  in  the  hearts  of  more  than  seven  millions  of 
our  countrymen.  Tlie  slow  and  narrow  influences 
of  pei'sonal  example  and  of  pul>lic  s})eech,  Ly  which 
alone,  in  the  days  of  tlui  early  settlement,  were  all 
social  impressions  made  and  diffused,  are  now  re- 
placed Ly  a  thousand  rai)i(l  agencies  by  which  public 
opinion  is  formed  and  circulated.  Population  seems 
no  longer  local  and  stationaiy,  but  ever  more  and 
more  migratory,  intermingl(Ml  and  transfused ;  and, 
if  the  virtue  and  the  power,  to  which  to-day  Ave  pay 
our  homage,  survive  in  the  sons  of  the  Pilgrims, 
doul)t  not  their  influences  will  soon  penetrate  and 
pervade  the  whole  general  mass  of  society  through- 
out the  nation  ;  fear  not  ])ut  that  eqiuility  of  rights 
community  of  intere'St^  reciprocity  of  duty  will  bind 
this  whole  people  together  in  a  perfect,  a  perpetual 
union. 


